Phil Spencer 'Thrilled' To Have Crystal Dynamics Partnering On Perfect Dark

Not sure why people are getting worried over this. Outsourcing is quite common in games/software development.

I don't know about all this to be honest, pretty sure even the website at one point said AAAA. To need help from an other dev whilst you've had 3 years already and only came up with a cinematic trailer....
The state of some xbox studios man

@Cherip-the-Ripper no large project is made by one studio. This is pretty common the only difference is they are just publicly announcing it.
Give you an idea last of Us 2 took 14 studios to make
God of war was around 9-10 studios
Halo infinite has around 7 ish that I know of
And don't even look at call of duty, assassin's Creed games as each of those has like 15+

I still suspect they have more than one game on the go.

We had the studio head showing a pic of his kid supoosedly playing "our new game" before Perfect Dark was even announced, and now not only is the game super early in development but they are bringing in another studio.

I'm guessing there is some other smaller project.

I don’t know how to feel about this. Also the fact that Crystal Dynamics is part of Square Enix now. And SE is hot then they’re cold- they’re yes then they’re no.

And 9 guys made Goldeneye.

But no, this is still baffling. If The Initiative are a AAAA studio, why are they just a small and agile project planning group that outsources to other studios?. Random quality, here we come.

It seems like they spent two years trying to make a AAAA games, and couldn't do it, so was tasked with reviving Perfect Dark, and couldn't do it, so they've outsourced the project. Seriously, what's going on there?

@John117 My problem isn't a lack of education, it's a fundamental disagreement with how the current AAA development scene works. If you had bothered to ask before giving your opinion and being condescending, you'd have found that out.

The current model is what causes games to be so avoidant to risk. It's what causes them all to feel the same. And it's what causes them to be such a god damn mess. How many AAA titles of the xbox one generation were just outright broken at launch?

@JohannVanDerSmut It's another marketing term the industry has come up with to one up the competition. It's meaningless.

@John117 At what point did I say I was angry at xbox? I quite explicitly stated I hated the AAA dev scene.

Also, Psychonauts 2. Not a AAA game. Made by Double Fine, who are a smaller dev, and the game was originally kickstarted with a much smaller than AAA budget after a 12 year hiatus because big publishers wouldn't touch it.

12 minutes. The same. Made by 1 guy who brought on a handful of others to help him complete it and was published by a small indie publisher.

Both of these, being great quality, smaller dev projects actually support my stance of anti-AAA, not your pro-outsourcing, massive employment stance.

AAAA is just a marketing term

@SplooshDmg I’m sure this was meant to be a great announcement but literally people don’t understand that most big game projects have support studios.

@Richnj while I get some of your points; I’m not sure if you have general lament of the AAA industry or simple don’t get most projects from all studios do this. Your comments can run either way but yes you sound angry.

@JohannVanDerSmut There isn’t. Years ago it was found on a Job listing on LinkedIn. Xbox never actually used the term themselves. Media ran with it. But to be fair The Initiative always said they wanted to remain “small and agile”.

@mousieone I get that most projects do this, it's the extent to which AAA development does this and the resulting negative effects that bug me.

Think of it like a diminishing returns effect. I think they could severely reduce the amount of money, studios, people, and time they spend on most of these games, and not lose any quality (I actually think smaller, more focused teams, actually up the quality, again, see Psychonauts) and those freed up resources could be working on something different.

I didn't think I wrote anything angry in the above, besides the response to being told to educate myself. I normally just consider it passion, but honestly, seeing how a company like Activision has closed studios, shutdown smaller IPs, and placed all devs on COD duty, yeah, that gets me angry. That's a company I am angry with, and for more than one reason.

So that’s a purchase of Crystal Dynamics on the cards for Microsoft then.

I wonder who holds the Legacy of Kain licence these days….🤔

And to think my coffee went cold! Sorry, I thought we were just moaning about nonsense

@SplooshDmg You forget it has to do with MS.

@Richnj This is why I said your comments could run either way. They sound "directed” at one studio as opposed to the industry at large. And yes, I really haven't been thrilled with "AAA" for a while. Sean Layden actually said this was a problem years ago. But all of them are chasing that elusive "AAA" prize. For What?

I mostly play indie and AA games these days. I'm super happy. How many other games like The Last of Us 2 come out and barely make a dent in people's minds? Even without bugs "AAA" games are largely lacking. Fortunately, MS does have their Globally publishing divisions which has seen games like Tell Me Why and 12 Minutes crop up. And from what I can see they are happy to let Double Fine be Double Fine. I suspect that studio will be tremendously important in the coming years.

However, my issue with AAA isn't as much with the studios as the game players themselves. The bulk of Western Gamers just aren't satisfied unless a game is a gorgeous 4k60 etc. People nitpick fruit and Boat Jumping animations. Game Freak presented early Alpha footage of Pokemon Arceus; and people complained that it looked bad. The bulk of the problem is the players and their expectations. They want more and more, but we've gotten to a point where that is near impossible. My litle brother often peaks over my shoulder and makes comments that my games are "Baby Games". Yet, the indies I play are far more creative than the latest version of Madden that he plays. But he's the type of player that drives the industry, unfortunately.

That said, my issue with using CD is that they are used to making Third Person action games, and I know the studio head used to work with them. However, this is a First Person Stealth game. Also, Arkane Lyon just wrapped up Deathloop and is owned by MS. They are used to making First Person Stealth games, and using them wouldn't cause this meltdown people seem to be having here.

@JohannVanDerSmut Cold coffee is actually the worst

@Cherip-the-Ripper no that’s actually not true at all. Many support studios aren’t ones by the company and we do hear about them;, people just don’t care. For Instance https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/09/dragon_quest_xii_is_being_co-developed_by_square_enix_hexadrive_and_orca

And then
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vg247.com/amp/the-last-of-us-part-2-cast-crew
Which is lot of extra people for one project.

So it’s normal actually what’s not normal is a studio of CDs size that usually works on their own projects instead of three smaller support studios.

Edit: What I’m trying to say is usually they hire a ton of extra bodies for these games. Your trying to make it seem like it’s one extra tiny studio that helps out when it’s not the case.

@mousieone I've actually never heard of games getting supported by third party developers before believe it or not. Thanks for the links, I wished there'd be more people like ya. I figured The Initiative got help from other xbox studios and whoever does localization and all that ofcourse, but I figured they wouldn't need one very big developer's help, that's a miscommunication on my part sorry. Also I deliberately called cd big so don't really know what you mean by your last statement?
@SplooshDmg it never is fam. Though actually maybe christmas is I don't know.

@Cherip-the-Ripper yeah no worries it’s usually not news worthy because most companies don’t loan out their big studios for support. That’s the crazy part. And never mind the edit; I was trying to clarify but you understood so all good.

To be honest this does make me worried. What I am hoping, no praying for, is for the PD/Goldeneye style of FPS that Rare created, to be brought roaring into a new generation, in the same way iD reinvigorated the Doom format for recent gens successfully by staying true to Doom's roots.

The format I am talking about is the level based mission and objective structure that changed depending on which of the 3 Agent levels were chosen.

As good as the new Tomb Raider games were, Crystal Dynamics dumbed down the main games and took away the puzzle solving and raiding of Tombs, and relegated this to optional Challenge Tombs which were only really great in Rise. Marvel's Avengers was very brainless.

It is making me think we are possibly getting "dumbed down" Perfect Dark. I really hope I am wrong. There are hundreds of FPS on the market, and PD will only stand out if it is true to its roots as there are no other games like it at present.

How about expanding Rare, and employing people who were extremely passionate about these franchises, to develop them? I think MS maybe left these franchises and Rare stagnant for too long.

Xbox Game Studios let studios do whatever they want and that is... good? Microsoft should supervise their projects as QA. Not only that but give them specific projects like they did with Perfect Dark. That would mean that we'd get Banjo-Kazooie and Viva Piñata. I mean, if a studio has a great idea let those people do it (Psychonauts 2) but if not, give them an IP to work on. And supervise them! 343 Industries have been a money hole for years.

Will Perfect Dark be coming to Xbox One as well? It would be unfair to make this a Series X exclusive given the console is next to impossible to obtain.

@Don By the time Perfect Dark 3 is released, Series X will be available everywhere.

@BlueOcean
I hope so, I definitely want to own the Series X by the time Perfect Dark comes out.

@mousieone now that we've cleared that up and you seem to be in the know how, do you know of any other similar situations like this? You've called it crazy so I'd figure there's not but I'd like to be surprised. Also, I'm not familiar with Perfect Dark, haven't played any, as for CD I know some of their games, though I can't see much more of a connection between the two of these studios except for the fact that the initiative dude is their former studio head. I'd say their games don't really align much, if I'm to assume that CD is helping with core development would it not be an odd match? (Going off of the assumption that they make different games), or is it just not that much of a disparity in this type of situation?

@Cherip-the-Ripper well it is super unusually for a company to loan out one of their top studios for this. That’s the bizarre part.

That said there have been many co-developed games out there Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright. And there have been other studios loaned out for other projects Halo Wars 2 was made by one of Sega’s teams for instance. Bandai notoriously handles Smash and Pokémon Snap.

CD is in the same city as TI and yes there is the studio head connection. Game wise not so much but to be fair most of the studios that work on First Person games belong to MS now any …

But again it’s not crazy TI needing help and picking up a partner; it’s crazy Square Enix loaning out CD. Like did they not have anything else in the works? Or is this going to be a smaller team?

I really think this was meant as a flex and had the opposite reaction. Because if tomorrow Nintendo said that they were partnering with Sega to make a game whose going to bat an eye?

Also I don’t think people realize 2020 was a wash for most studios due to Covid globally. Yes, work at home, sure and then trying to be efficient with children also stuck at home? Anyway I’m not surprise the game is still in earlier development. Nor that they can find staff. Every place of business can’t find staff in the States. I work at a company that has 30 stores across 3 States and the most of the managers are lucky to have one day off. And we can’t even find an environmental officer; we’ve had to go look at other states for people and that’s 100k a year position.